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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22416391">The Noctian Way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder'>WahlBuilder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Technomancer (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:48:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22416391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Do not despair for the passing of others, <i>tamaiti</i>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hello Earth? This Is Mars...</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Noctian Way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Do not despair for the passing of others, <em>tamaiti</em>: we all come as guests invited to a feast we can’t not attend; our time is finite, borrowed. We learn from others at the feast, and lay with those we wish to listen to, and adorn their heads with flowers of our love. Our seating is pre-arranged, although through the course of the feast we might try to change it—but even our conversations are somewhat preordained by our proximity to one person or another, by the topics raised, by objects in our field of vision.</p>
<p>There are mishaps, of course, and much struggle, and often we remember the headache better than the taste of wine that preceded it (even when the wine was damned good).</p>
<p>I do not say: Do not mourn for the departed. It is only natural to feel sadness at the time of leaving of someone who’s warmed your heart and let you rest your head on their shoulder as it grew heavy. But do not despair at the parting itself: time comes for each of us to leave the feast and vacate the seating for the new guests. The matter of our body falls apart to be incorporated into new forms—and our spirit goes with it.</p>
<p>Dance, <em>tamaiti</em>, dance and sing—for the love of life, for the celebration of a life well-spent and for relief, at last, of pain of a life burdened. (Existence is full of suffering—which is not to say that it’s lacking in joy.)</p>
<p>You will depart also, as I will before you (this order is my hope), and as others have done already, and as countless others will, and though we turn into building matter for other things (never into nothing, <em>tamaiti</em>, never), our words echo in the great canyons forever.</p>
<p>(The One remembers.)</p>
<p>There is no soul—that is, there is no engine that contains <em>you</em>, as though an observer: a sandsail is the sum of its parts including the pilot, though some of those parts can be removed, lost, replaced.</p>
<p>But the wind changes course, caught momentarily in the sails, and the wheels leave tracks, displacing grains of sand. No life goes unconnected, no life goes without touching others.</p>
<p>Our voices echo in the canyons.</p>
<p>Dance, <em>tamaiti</em>.</p>
<p>Such is the Noctian way.</p>
<p><em>Kokka</em> Artair, <br/>the seventieth season of storms</p>
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